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I first tried online dating
my freshman year of college,

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which was in 2001,
in case you can't see my wrinkle.

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Now, as you may have noticed,
I'm six-feet tall,

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and when I arrived at my chosen university

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and realized our men's Division III
basketball team averaged five-foot-eight,

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I abandoned the on-campus
scene and went online.

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Now, back then, online dating
was pretty close to the plot

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of "You've Got Mail."

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You'd write long emails
back and forth for weeks,

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before you finally met up in real life.

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Except, in my case,
you'd realize you have no chemistry

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and so now, you're back to square one.

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So, while online dating
has changed a lot in the last 17 years,

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many of the frustrations remain the same.

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Because here's what it does well.

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It broadens your pool of potential dates

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beyond your existing social
and professional circles.

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And here's what it doesn't do well.

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Literally everything else.

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(Laughter)

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A few things you should know about me:

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I'm an action-oriented overachieving
math and theater nerd,

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who ended up with an MBA.

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So, when things aren't working out,
I tend to take a step back,

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apply my business toolkit
to figure out why, and to fix it.

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My love life was no exception.

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The summer before I turned 30,
I took myself on a relationship off-site.

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Which means I went camping solo
in Maine for a week,

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to do a retro on my track record
of mediocre relationships.

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Because the thing was,
I knew what I wanted in a partner.

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Kindness, curiosity, empathy,
a sense of purpose.

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And yet, here's what I chose for online:

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Ivy League degree, six feet or taller,

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lives within 12 subway stops of me.

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It's not that I intentionally
prioritized those things,

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it's just the easiest to vet for online.

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It kind of is like a résumé review,

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which is why these guys
looked great on paper

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and never quite fit me.

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So when I went back online
in the spring of 2016,

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I decided to reengineer the process
through some classic business tools.

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First, I went to OkCupid,

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because I wanted to avoid
the gamification of swipe-based apps.

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And also, because I wanted
a writing sample.

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Next, I set up a sales funnel,

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throwing out any sense of my type,

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and instead defining the criteria
that would qualify a lead.

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An inbound message had to do three things:

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had to be written in complete sentences
and with good grammar;

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it had to reference
something in my profile,

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so I know it's not
a copy-and-paste situation;

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and it had to avoid all sexual content.

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I figured this was a pretty low bar,

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but it turns out,
of my 210 inbound messages,

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only 14 percent cleared that hurdle.

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(Laughter)

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Next, I wanted to meet in real life
as quickly as possible,

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because the things I cared about,
I couldn't see online.

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But the research, and my experience,

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shows you only need about 30 seconds
with someone to tell if you click.

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So I invented the zero date.

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The zero date is one drink, one hour.

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With the goal of answering one question:

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Would I like to have
dinner with this person?

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Not "are they the one"?

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Literally, "Would I like to spend
three hours across the table

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from this person?"

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You tell them you have a hard stop --

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drinks with girlfriends,
a conference call with China --

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it doesn't matter, they don't know you.

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The point is one hour.

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If it's awesome,
you schedule a first date.

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And if it's not awesome,
you downshift into entertainer mode

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and you workshop a few new stories
for your next networking event.

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Plus, because it's just an hour,
you can squeeze up to three in one evening

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and then you only have to do your hair
and pick out one great outfit a week.

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The zero date also gave me a chance
to see how they responded

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to me asking them out.

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I figured not everyone
would dig my moxie, and I was right.

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Of my 29 qualified leads,
only 15 replied to my message,

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and of those, six scheduled a zero date.

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My first zero date
was with a set designer.

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And we were both into yoga

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and preferred our bagels
with peanut butter,

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so it looked pretty promising.

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But two minutes in, I could tell
it wasn't going to be a thing

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and I was relieved not to be
spending dinner with him.

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After that, I was a little nervous
about going to my next zero date.

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But we had agreed to meet
on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade

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with a flask of whiskey
to watch the sunset,

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and honestly, it was two blocks
from my apartment.

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Plus, this guy had a podcast,
I have a podcast,

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worst case scenario,
we can talk about our podcasts.

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Then, Chaz set down next to me.

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And this kind and empathetic man

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told great jokes
and asked even better questions.

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He was a lawyer and a writer,
and his eyes twinkled when he laughed

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and they squeezed tight when I kissed him

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and at some point in the evening,
our zero date became a first date.

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And two years later, we have a washer,
dryer and two house plants together.

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Now, I can't promise
you're going to end up with house plants.

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But the point of this story

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is that online dating
doesn't have to suck.

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Don't treat it like a game,
and don't treat it like a resume review.

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Instead, use it to source
and qualify leads

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and then get offline as quickly
as possible with the zero date.

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Because the point of this isn't swiping.

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It's finding your person.

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Good luck.

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(Applause)